their 70s. i teal i feel extraordinarily old. >> they're still great. the we've been talking about women and equal pay and all these issues, in all seriousness i'm lucky to be working with you and for a company who has dealt with this problem transparentally. >> they actually have. and let me just say the thing i've learned this week, people, that when you start talking about binders and women's issues, i'm going to shut my mouth and listen to mika, how about that? >> there you go. have a good weekend. >> if it's way too early, what time is it? chuck todd has "the daily rundown." see you monday. president obama and governor romney share a stage are for the second time in three days, but this time it's all smiles for catholic charities. and the zingers, though, were still flying, but we all know behind every joke there's some truth they're trying to impart. and the president stopped by

"the daily show" and is far less humor ouz. some serious talk about libya. could continuing questions about the handling of the benghazi attack and its aftermath hamper him on election day or at monday's debate? and let your feet do the talking. it's not just the polls that tell us who is up and who is down. watch where the cant datz and their top surrogates are going with just 18 days until election day. that's the real tell. good morning from washington. it's friday, october 19, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. an incredibly packed show. some senate debate highlights. a lot of senate debates last night. i'll have that for you later in the show. we have a new decision app deal, sliders, big stack the stage if you love that app, and i have polls. so let me get to my first read of the morning. today president obama and governor romney hit the trail for the last time before monday's foreign policy debate in boca raton. when the candidates leave florida tuesday there will be just 14 days left in this race,

folks. romney, paul, ryan, even ann romney campaigned in the sunshine state. the vice president will stump in florida as well. president obama holds a rally in fairfax, virginia, before leaving for camp david where he's doing his foreign policy debate prep this weekend. florida is to romney what ohio is to the president. it's a state that the campaign believes they are going to win, but also view as a must-win. it's not an accident that for the first time romney is doing his debate prep in a swing state rather than at home. they'll prepare in del ray beach near west palm. on monday night the candidates will clash once again on the administration's handling of the september 11th attack in benghazi. and this morning the associated press has been reporting that will drive that debate. the cia station chief in libya reported to washington, the cia in washington -- probably more accurately mcclain, that within 24 hours of the attack there was evidence it was carried out by

militants not as a result of a spontaneous mob as susan wright asserted five days later. what is unclear is who saw this cable outside of the headquarters at the cia and even how high up in the agency itself was the information transmitted. but it adds yet another piece to this puzzle. last night the president made his sixth appearance on "the daily show." his second as president. a stop targeted, of course, to try to fire up the so-called stagnant youth vote, if it you will. but benghazi came up. >> i would say even you would admit it was not the optimal response, at least to the american people as far as us all being on the same page. >> here is what i'll say. if four americans get killed, it's not optimal and we're going to fix it. >> right. >> all of it. >> the president was challenged on his case for re-election. >> do you feel like you have a

stronger affirmative case for a second barack obama presidency or a stronger negative case for a mitt romney presidency? >> i think i have a strong case on both ends. i do think that part of the president's job is not only moving forward on things that will work but also preventing things that won't work. >> believe it or not, it wasn't on comedy central that the actual humor was exchanged. 48 hours after their most heated and personal debate yet, president obama and governor romney dialed things back only a tad at the al smith catholic charity dinner in new york city. at moments they were self-deprecating. >> a campaign can can require a lot of wardrobe changes. blue jeans in the morning perhaps. a suit for a lunch fund-raiser. a sports coat for dinner. it's nice to finally relax and to wear what ann and i wear around the house. >> this is the third time that governor romney and i have met recently. as some of you may have noticed,

i had a lot more energy in our second debate. i felt really well rested after the nice long nap i had in the first debate. >> but self-deprecation aside the two men attempted to score humorous political points. >> in the spirit of "sesame street" the president's remarks are brought to you by the letter "o" and the number 16 trillion. >> earlier today i went shopping at some stores in midtown. i understand governor romney went shopping for some stores in midtown. >> as president obama surp vas the waldorf banquet room with everyone in white tie and finery, you have to wonder what he's thinking. so little time, so much to redistribute. >> the world affairs are a challenge for every candidate. after some of you, remember, my foreign trip in 2008, i was attacked as a celebrity because i was so popular with our allies overseas. and itch to say i'm impressed

with how well governor romney has avoided that problem. >> romney managed, also, to get in a dig at the media. >> i would never suggest that the press is biased. i recognize they have their job to do, i have my job to do. my job is to lay out a positive vision for the future of the country and their job is to make sure no one else finds out about it. i've seen early reports from tonight's dinner. headline, obama embraced by catholics. romney dines with rich people. >> and both had fun at the expense of their opponent's running mate. >> i was hoping the president would bring along joe biden because he'll latch at anything. >> sometimes it feels like this race has dragged on forever. but paul ryan assured me we've only been running for two hours and 50 something minutes. >> speaking of biden, he raised

a few eyebrows campaigning thursday as he attempted to play off the title of paul ryan's book "young guns." >> ryan has written a book called "the young guns" with two other fellows, members of the house. unfortunately, the bullets may be you. >> the campaign not amused calling biden's comments over the top. ♪ >> bruce springsteen along with former president clinton were in ohio and in iowa for the obama campaign, dispatched in an effort to lock 0 down the midwestern battleground states. >> governor romney's argument is we're not fixed so fire him and put me in. it is true we're not fixed. the question is, which path will fix it? why in the wide world would you

stop a strategy that's working for one you know won't work. >> president clinton said it's true that our economy is not fixed. he's right. >> ohio along with iowa and wisconsin are the states the obama campaign sees as its election day firewall because winning them means they could lose every other key swing state. all of them. and if they won those three midwestern states they'd be sitting at 271 electoral votes. new polls in two of those states today showed little movement from a month ago. an eight-point advantage. the president led by eight points a month ago n. wisconsin we have it as a six-point contest. the romney campaign insists the contest is much closer than our poll shows. the x-factor may very well be early voting. 34% of likely voters say they have cast their ballots and the

president is winning those 67% to 32%. among election day voters romney ahead. now republicans pointed out that 285 ohio early and absentee ballots have been received in iowa which is only 19% of the 2008 electorate in the state, less than 34% in our poll. 363,000 have been requested in the state, 38% of the 2008 electorate. closer to our 34%. a little transparency. voter models overstating early voters or are democrats more apt to say they pressured early? it is making election day vote nears early voters. i'm joined by our pollster for the states, the director of the marist poll. so, lyrics let's get right to it. like i said, the campaign disputing the iowa numbers, this early vote issue.

that is a big difference between what's been reported and what folks told us in our poll. explain. >> well, there's a lot of reasons. first of all, let's look at the fact that turnout is likely to be lower this time than it was four years ago. the early voting is going to be up and the absentee will break 40% where it was in the mid-30s last time. people have gotten their absentee ballots, filled it out, told us they're voting. we're talking about a couple day delay. tens of thousands of people requesting them every day and they're being turned in. so we're going to see these numbers grow very quickly in the next few days. people are telling us they have voted. therefore they are not likely voters. they are did he haefinite voter. what we're tapping into, i think, is a very clear campaign strategy on the part of the obama campaign team.

obama is running up the score right now. >> would you ever look at this and consider this -- that some of the confusion on the gallup likely voter model has to do with the early vote? would you ever consider wait in the early vote, waiting it down? i'm not saying we should do this about as a statistician, would that be a number you would consider? >> no, no, no. you wouldn't know what to weight to. it's like party i.d. you're just pulling out numbers. we're asking people what they've done, what they intent to do and what they're going to do on election day and i think seeing the gallup polls as opposed to the state polls really showing a different picture and there's a lot of reasons for that. obviously different likely voter

models. our surveys have more likely voters in these individual states than the national polls have for the entire country. so these are a big sample we're looking at and that's how we can drill down and tell folks what's really going on. we don't tell voters how to vote. they're not waiting for the next gallup poll, we're picking up what they are telling us how they are acting and thinking. >> i want to pick up on a couple of things here. there was no change predebate. our poll was conducted, half of it, before the debate. half of it after the debate. while we saw no difference in the ballot test, i'll throw that up there, there was no real movement in either direction, we did -- you did notice a movement in both states on the issue of direction of the country in iowa and in wisconsin where it was predebate and where it was post debate. tell us about it.

>> sure. and if you're an incumbent, barack obama, you want those numbers about the right direction to go up because obviously then people are thinking and feeling better about things. that's what we saw predebate and post debate, the only real movement in those numbers. in fact, in this whole campaign it's been close, it is going to be close. i think what we're seeing is when the numbers passed 40%, that's when obama started talking more about moving forward and became a harder argument for romney. don't look just at the margins, the six-point lead, the eight-point lead. let's take a look at where obama is. his approval rating around 50% and he's getting 51% in the tossup question. that's really important because it's not like he's at 54% or 55%. 50 is a good number. you can carry a state with that. >> but barely. >> it's better to be ahead by four or five points than ten points if it was 45%/35%. >> lee miringoff, we'll have a couple more polls.

we'll check out west next week before we drill down to what we think will be the closest race and be polling the living day lights out of them. lee, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. have a great day. back to the brink, no matter who wins in november, the looming fiscal cliff will be at the top of the agenda. is there any hope for a grand bargain and what does that bargain look like? judd gregg joins me next. we have a great roundup. a ton of big senate debates last night. we'll give you the best of it. shockingly these races are getting personal. who would have figured. first, mitt romney and barack obama as we told you where those two spend their time every day tells you where they think the most precarious states are in in their attempt to get to 207. you're watching "the daily rundown." so you say men are superior drivers?

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the president and democrats are digging in their heels, promising to raise taxes for the wealthy even if gop opposition forces the country off the so-called fiscal cliff. here is what democratic congressman chris van holland told me yesterday. >> we need to start any discussion at the rate that the taxes will go to for the wealthy under current law which is at 39%. that is the starting point and the president has been very clear and he's been talking about this through the debate that we need to allow those rates to go back to where they were. >> former new hampshire republican senator judd gregg was ranking member on the budget

committee and co-chairs the bipartisan fix the debt campaign. senator gregg, it's nice to talk with you. >> great to talk to you, chuck. thanks. >> let's start with obviously november 6 matters here. if the president is re-elected we assume fiscal cliff gets dealt with earlier. if mitt romney wins the elect everything gets punted for six months. is that a fair assessment of the most like willy scenario here? >> it's a distinctly possible asse assessment. i would hope we would get out of the lame duck which is -- has the potential to be the mother of all lame duck sessions. a procedure that would lead to a comprehensive agreement on debt and deficit reduction which would allow the fiscal cliff to be put off in a way there will be action on the underlying problem which is our deficit and debt. that's the third pathway. the two you mentioned are distinctly possible pathways,

also. >> we have this dual trigger nightmare. we have tax rates that would go up on december 31st and the sequestration that goes in. >> and the debt ceiling. >> i was going to bring it up but you brought it up first, does that at all force a grand bargain here? obviously there are a lot of democrats who say this time, what, no. it may take going off the cliff. i had a few democrats indicate that, hey, shutting down the government in 2010 might have actually allowed the republican leadership to bring some more conservative members along for a grand bargain. do you buy that scenario? >> no, i think that would be chaotic, that would be counterproductive pathway and i think inappropriate for leaders of this country to allow that to happen. you would have an immediate stalling out of the economy which is obviously not growing

that quickly anyway. the estimate is that if if the fiscal cliff executed there would be a 3% to 4% reduction in it growth and we're only growing at 1.5% to 2%. you can't play games like that with the american economy and all the jobs that would be lost. >> so is the debt ceiling -- the at the time ceiling was a game. >> yeah, it was. and it was inrappropriate. >> that was inappropriate? >> absolutely. that was artificially created crisis. this is also in the sense it's legislated and it can be changed through legislation and all we need is a little leadership here. we have lots of ideas. we had simpson-boles. they're available. we just have to get the people who are running the government to sit down and reach an agreement on these big issues of how you get the deficit and debt under control and there's a good template for it. simpson-boles plus under the fix

the debt initiative and there are a lot of folks in the congress today who are willing to make these tough calls. in the senate especially we're working with 30 or 40 members of the senate who are very interested in this across the aisle. >> jamie dimond said wall street would be okay. a lot of people would be fine. if their taxes go up a little bit, if it is a part of a major agreement. by him saying something like that, does that give some republicans cover politically? >> i actually think most conservative republicans are willing to take some level of revenue if coupled to it is a significant reduction in spending which comes about as a result of entitlement reform which is the proposal -- i don't want to go back to simpson-boles. 75% of the savings on the deficit, what came out of spending reduction, 75% to a major tax reform initiative and

three of the most fiscally conservative members of the senate, myself, tom coburn, voted for it because we thought it was a reasonable compromise and if you listen to some of the house votes, the house leadership folks, they're also willing to do that, i believe. it comes down to leadership and honestly it comes down to presidential leadership. you have to have the president giving cover to members of his party so they can make these tough calls. >> senator, let me ask you about new hampshire. you know it well. what's been interesting to me there's been some polling that has shown the president with a significant lead. others have had it a dead heat. none have had romney up but what i'm watching is who is spending money in the boston tv market and right now none of the super pacs, mitt romney is not up will but the president is. what is that telling you? what kind of tea leaf reading should we be doing on that? is. >> i don't read those tea leaves because television -- there's

been so much advertising, people are sort of tuning it out. new hampshire is a very late deciding state. of our 750,000 people who are going to vote on election day, 100,000 will be new registrants or re-registrants who were taken off the rolls and had to be put back on. they will decide late. there's a movement towards mitt romney. i think it's happening nationally. i think he's done very well in the debates and he was very entertaining last night, of course, at the alfred smith dinner as was the president and i think people are getting comfortable with his philosophy. >> you think new hampshire -- you think he can still win new hampshire? >> i think he will win new hampshire and will win it comfortably. >> okay. senator judd gregg, former republican senator from new hampshire, always good to be talking with you on budget issues. >> thank you, a pleasure. >> it's great to have you. google shocks the street. a big glitch for tech stocks. market rundown is next.

white ties, tails, and the tea totaler jokes. must be the al smith dinner. first today's trivia question. here we go. charlie cooke wrote about this this morning. folks, we're all thinking about it. how many presidents have won the election without winning the popular vote? i gave birth to my daughter on may 18th,

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in a campaign where it often seems the candidates genuinely do not like each other or even respect each other, the al smith dinner to benefit catholic

charities was a well-needed brief respite though the president and mitt romney traded a few jabs along with the jokes. >> president obama and i are each very lucky to have one person who is always in our corner, someone we can always lean on and someone who is a comforting presence without whom we wouldn't be able to go another day. i have my beautiful wife, ann. he has bill clinton. >> in less that three weeks voters in states like ohio, virginia and florida will decide this incredibly important election which begs the question what are we doing here? >> luke russert attended the p dinner last night. are you still in your tails? >> i changed out of my white tails but one of mitt romney's best jokes was he and ann wear white tails around the house. >> we had it earlier in the show. so, luke, explain who gets in there. basically it's a who's who of

the new york/washington/southern corridor. >> it's a who's who of southern politics and a who's who in terms of big money catholic donors and folks who are very much involved in catholic charities. it's been going on since 1946. obviously the first catholic to be nominated, a major run for president in 1928 and this thing has grown every single year. in terms of it becoming this tv event that people turn into, that started in 2000 with george w. bush and al gore that in 2008 with john mccain and barack obama we saw it and last night both of them, they had a few good jokes. i thought romney was more aggressive than obama. it was also a home game for romney. they were big wall street guys. ironically they were very much for obama four years ago and i said why the switch? they said he doesn't understand the economy.

so that was a -- led to more raucous cheers for romney. >> some of the stand-up before, al smith iv, does he do blue? >> he's a funny guy, huh? he had some good, good jokes. >> is he the great-great-grandson? >> yeah, the great-grandson and the funniest when he looked to mitt romney and he said your dad is going to mexico and you have kids, are you sure you're not catholic and that got a big laugh throughout the room. i would say in terms of looking at their body and interaction, chuck, i kept an eye on them all night, not a lot of interaction. you had the cardinal obviously sitting between them. i was also shocked not a lot of interaction between president obama and ann romney. kind of a coldness there just from viewing it from afar. >> it is rough, buddy. it is a rough campaign. i had a feeling this would get uglier in the next 18 days.

it was good to have them at least show the public that maybe they can still have a sense of humor. >> it seemed heart fefelt when y talked about each other's family and good to have a cardinal between them. >> neither political party right now, the operatives, have no sense of humor anymore. luke russert, thank you very much. this morning early christmas presents for political junkies. it's a string of fiery and feisty senate debates in some of the toughest senate races in the country. a best of, if you will. we begin in ohio. republican josh mandel accused each other of hitting new lows in their senate race. >> senator, you are a liar. you are falsely attacking me and i won't stand for it. you might want to push people around in washington but europe not going to push me around. >> josh mandel as we know has trouble telling the truth. you can't trust josh mandel to do his job, to show up for work.

>> that was the second debate for those two. i'm moderating their third confrontation in cincinnati next thursday. in virginia where the senate race is essentially tied, george allen and tim kaine battled over the political philosophy they would take to washington. >> i want to be virginia sena r senator. tim wants to be president obama's senator. in washington you deserve a strong, independent voice not an echo. >> i could do not think it is anti-have anti-virginian to support the president of the united states. george has made very plain he will not consider a president obama a partner. i will always work with the president of the united states to be a partner. >> that has been one of the least confrontational of the senate races, by the way. republican tommy thompson came loaded for bear in his debate with tammy baldwin. when the topic turned to iran, thompson saw his chance to attack baldwin for receiving donations from a company that opposes sanctions. the problem for tomorrhompson,

didn't go quite as planned. take a listen. >> i have no idea what you're talking about but it's ridiculous. >> back to the issue at hand -- >> are you saying you didn't receive money from the council for a living earth? >> council for a living earth? i'm not familiar with the council for a living earth. >> they've been supporting you for ten years. >> i've never heard -- >> it was on the front page of "the milwaukee journal" this morning. >> i'll have to look at that. i've never heard of a council for the living earth. >> what tomorrhompson meant to was the council are for a livable world. we'll have to see if he gets another shot at their next debate. two others we want to mention, an hour's worth of political and personal attacks. when asked to say something nice about her opponent mcmahon complimented murphy's little boys instead of the candidate himself. finally in missouri the debate

between todd akin and claire mccass cccaskill. the sitting senator tried to cast her opponent as a conservative. the legitimate rape comment never came up. earnings season giveth and taketh away. three of the biggest countries post revenue that fell short of expectations. becky quick joins us with a market rundown. i saw you tweet the mcdonald's expectations. what's interesting there, isn't that one of those cases when the economy is down mcdonald's is up and when the economy gets better people stop going to mcdonald's? that's exactly right which is why this is a really concerning number. real quickly, three of the companies that missed earnings expectatio expectations, general electric was out with its earnings and general electric is a 49% owner of nbc universal. they came in with earnings that were in line with expectations but the revenue line was light and that's why we see all of these concerns. chuck, you are right. a few things caught me by surprise in those mcdonald's

numbers. the stores in the united states they were only up by 0.7% for september. the analysts have been looking for up 1.7%. you wonder if that is a one off because of september. we had heard from some other companies like southwest yesterday who said that they really struggled with the economy in september but october's numbers had been better and we don't have mcdonald's october numbers yet. i wonder if that was a bobble. in europe, the numbers for mcdonald's, their sales actually were can -- what they said their numbers were okay but it was because pricing had come in instead of traffic. traffic trends were actually down in europe and, chuck, the same thing caught me by surprise because usually in really tough times you'll see people coming in for the dollar menu or the euro menu. in europe it tells you things are so bad the traffic is actually down. that means people aren't going out at all if they're not going out to mcdonald's. >> all right. becky quinn, earnings season. that will have the impact. by the way, we get state by state unemployment rates in about an hour.

up next, we've got new toys, even a better way to show you how the states move back and forth. ohio, iowa, wisconsin. why for the president if they're not his election day firewall he's in big trouble. in today's "deep dive" a deeper look at the battleground map. focusing on the obama campaign's midwest firewall, if you will. iowa, wisconsin, ohio. the campaign is bringing out big names to shore up the states not only dispatching former president clinton but the boss

m man, bruce springsteen. events in ohio and iowa tied to early voting. clinton campaigns in wisconsin today. there is no question both campaigns know the importance of the midwest and they are flooding the field. take a look at this week's top ten ad markets. the most saturated tv markets, two in wisconsin. one that straddles the iowa/wisconsin border and four in ohio. tells you everything you need to know. the president still holding leads in iowa and in wisconsin. so what does that mean on the maps? this is the new cool stuff. you've seep n it this way. let me show it to you another way. my kids' favorite app is stack the states. the importance. the midwest firewall. let's give mitt romney everything except the midwestern states and watch this bar graph move up here. so there's colorado.

let's slide over nevada. let's slide over the southern states, virginia. north carolina, florida, and, look at judd fwrgregg, he said s guaranteed, new hampshire. look where it puts them now, 267, three short. so the firewall ohio, wisconsin, and iowa would put you there at 271. so you see the importance of this and the fact of the matter is when you look at nevada right now, if you put nevada in the obama column here, slide it all the way over to show you that we

can, you then see wisconsin becomes pretty important if you bring those ten over and then he has to break that one if it's -- if the firewall includes -- if nevada comes over the romney column, then he can just pick off an iowa. so when you lack at iowa and wisconsin, it all depends. if you put new hampshire into the obama column over there and let me put that over there to show you that example. some people think both new hampshire and nevada are obama states, then you have to break it. he has to come and get ohio in order to break the jam there. so you see that's the importance. the midwest firewall and then you throw in the nevada/new hampshire angle. if nevada ends up in the obama column and not new hampshire, then it has to be wisconsin or ohio but if both new hampshire and nevada end up in it the obama column then it's ohio or bust for the romney campaign.

all right, ahead in the final debate a new poll shows governor romney gaining ground on foreign policy issues. our political panel for friday will be here next. we'll talk about that. and a programming note for you, on "meet the press" obama campaign senior adviser david axelrod, senator rob portman who plays the president in the mitt romney debates and senator marco rubio and we'll be debuting the new national nbc/wa"wall street journal" poll on "meet the press" at 9:00. the white house soup of the day, roasted dhiken and vegetable. don't always get chicken on a friday. [ female announcer ] the power to become a better investor has gone mobile.

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billion. october 19, 1987, wall street's black monday. it was this day 25 years ago when the dow dropped 22.6%. the largest one-day percentage drop ever in wall street history. can you imagine, that was '87. imagine that happening in an election year? oh, wait, it did. in 2008. just one weekend stands between president obama and mitt romney and the presidential debate on foreign policy. with scrutiny over the attack in libya, the president is stressing his commander in chief credentials. >> the one thing i've been absolutely clear about is america's security comes first and the american people need to know exactly how i make decisions when it comes to war, peace, national security, and protecting americans and they will continue to get that over the next four years of my presidency. >> joining me now former republican governor bob, and

david drucker, welcome all. this interesting nugget, daniella, who would do a better john on foreign policy, it was a 15-point advantage for barack oba obama. it is now a four-point advantage, according to -- this is the benghazi thump, if you will, for mitt romney. >> it's not surprising that after the attacks in libya there was some movement. i think after the last debate and we'll see what happens that president obama showed that he is the commander in chief and mitt romney flubbed the whole libya question at the last debate. so i'm curious to see what happens after monday. >> governor, that seemed to be an opportunity for him and he messed up. he messed up. he didn't have his -- we just saw tommy thompson, that happens at debates. you can flub and all of a sudden the best well rehearsed line, hey buddy, i don't know what you're talking about. and it's panic-stricken, you saw it in the eyes of romney.

does that give him some pause on monday night? >> they can't get their story straight. the bottom line is they can't get their story straight, clinton looks uncomfortable. the first was bin laden. the second was libya. and they still can't get their story straight and that's the bottom line to the story and why you see the poll results. >> david, what does romney have to accomplish at the foreign policy debate? is it some sense of people know -- i mean, what's been interesting about his stances, they're not different from president obama. he tries to hug him on some issues, but he tries to rhetorically sound different. >> it's an issue of leadership and that's where mitt romney has an opening. but i also think that's what he has to communicate. it's not so much here are 50 things i would do differently as comma commander in chief. it's the idea that you can trust me as a leader in dealing with a foreign policy crisis, in

dealing with our national security. and i think when you're looking at the libya issue, in the last debate it wasn't so much that the president knocked it out of the park and put the issue to rest, it was that mitt romney flubbed it, which means it's still there for him if he tackles it right on monday. >> what i found interesting right after the debate they walked away from it. they didn't want to have it. they didn't want to relitigate. it seems like there is sensitivity to do we want to go down that route. >> and i think if that's what mitt romney has to do object monday he's in trouble. he hasn't done anything in the past two years campaigning to show that he is more trustworthy on foreign policy and i think this debate will be a problem for him because he has to lay out specifics. you are asking people to make a choice and if you can't say what you would do differently from the president and libya and in iran then that's a huge problem. >> how specific? >> you use the phrase terror war. he's not going to be afraid to label what is clearly -- >> obama said terror?

>> give me a break. >> the transcripts. >> go back four years, the world apology tour. >> governor -- >> there is a reticence for some reason to label what is, to borrow a phrase from president clinton, it is what it truly is and that's the theme of this administration from day one. president romney will not be so -- >> again, rhetoric -- all that's been different has been the rhetoric. he has not had anything different on iran, had anything different on afghanistan and it's been unclear where he is. >> much more for it. >> chuck, look, i think it's a man earp of nuance and i think that pre-september 11, 2012, it was a much harder task for romney. given what has happened in libya and the middle east writ large, he has an opportunity to prosecute the leadership question and the issue of tone and it is something that is sellable and don't forget this is not a national security

election. he needs to strongly check the box because -- >> can he afford 90 minutes only on national security, by the way? >> no. i think that's a huge problem. >> leading from behind is not f leadership. that's the central theme. >> can he afford to spend 90 minutes not talking about the economy, his last 90 minutes from front of 60 million people. >> it depends if they follow the rules. >> i think it's going to be a big problem for him. >> you expect romney to change the subject a couple times. >> i think he'll talk about the economy as a national security issue. at least in his closing statement. >> they are terrible at it. both of them didn't do it. >> answer the question. >> they didn't do it. >> we'll have lighter fare here. how many presidents have won the election without winning the popular vote. the answer is four. the first was john quincy adams in 1924.

he beat andrew jackson in a race decided by house of representatives. george w. bush in 2000. there are a lot of people thinking we're headed for this again. i'm sure the country will handle this one well. we'll be right back. chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save.

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mitt romney is starting his florida swing with a warm welcome today in that crucial i-4 corridor. four years after they endorsed president obama, they switched sides and backed romney in an editorial today. here's what the "orlando sentinel" said. economic growth is anemic. it's a tough one. they backed john kerry in 2004. newspaper endorsements are meaningless. i believe they are meaningless.

it's a sentiment. the only ones i pay attention to are ones that actually flip from what their traditional bent is. >> i think with this particular paper though except for '92, they always backed the party that's not in power, which i think is interesting. maybe they're just traditionally contrarian. >> that's an elegant spin there. >> it's not spin. it's the truth. you know, look, florida was always going to be close especially the i-4 corridor. look, like i said, they endorsed the party out of power since '92. i don't think anyone is going to be sweating bullets over this. they'll keep moving forward. >> newspaper endorsements have so much impact now. >> i'm kidding. >> that was great spin. this entire segment. not exactly a mouth piece here for the right wing. >> i'm not going comment on this. i'm let words sink in. >> florida was hit harder by the

economy and the housing crisis. speaking of the housing crisis, an issue that's not been tackled at the debates. >> not at all. i think it should have been. i think if you look at the closing days of the election, mitt romney at least had some key things moving in his favor but obama is right there with him and in some cases ahead of him so i think we have an even steven race in the last 20 days. >> it's going like this. they'll tear each other's eyes out. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." >> my colleagues are in a rust belt road trip. ohio, iowa, and illinois. >> fair enough. >> cap action. we're releasing our romney you state reports. we just released iowa and north carolina this week. tom is traveling the states telling them why president romney would be horrible for them. >> princeton tigers three in a row. >> they play football? >> they can read and write.

>> we're taking the road on the show. we'll see you next week from everywhere. florida. i'll be in cincinnati at some point. i think illinois, chicago, we'll see. all over. coming up next, chris jansing. bye-bye. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level.

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